Ah, they may have been giving you a deal, and you blew it. If you have a lot of work done, quite a few Body shops will waive the deductible, but since insurance companies frown on that, they just don;t say anything.
What to do in this case, is to just mention, “So we’re good?”, and then pay or drive off. Don;t make a big deal of getting the discount, except if you do get the discount, be sure to give them future business.
Do not call the police unless there is a injury, the local law requires it, a DUI is involved or the other dude doesn’t have insurance or it’s a hit & run.
“Fault” is a civil, not a criminal matter. The police are there to solve crimes, not help you with your insurance issues.
Your call to the PD could result in a violent crime not being prevented or a criminal not being caught.
Now, yes, do file a report (depending on local law) if you Agent doesn’t do it for you.
Every city is different. My local PD will respond in a few minutes, even to a fender bender. My aunt got in a car accident a few weeks ago, her police officer husband was quite annoyed at her for not calling the police (his department).
I’ve called the PD for accidents in many cities and many counties (but only Wisconsin). So far, I’ve never, ever been told not to call. One accident was even in a Best Buy parking lot. Cop came out and wrote up a report too. (Glad I did that, the other guy try to spin it into my fault, the report saved me a bunch of money).
If you’re really not sure, just call the non-emergency number for the city you’re in and ask them what they’d like to do. Maybe the dispatcher will just ask you to write down what happened, take some pictures and exchange info or maybe they’ll send a cop out. But I’d bet that in most jurisdictions where they’re isn’t already an hour or two backlog to get cops to where they need to be, they’ll be happy to send someone out.
BTW, another thing cops do besides ‘solve crimes’ is take down accident reports and write tickets to help assign fault.
A few years ago one of my employees got into a fender bender. Other guy ran a stop sign, they bumped into each other. No biggie. A few days later she got served with court papers claiming that SHE ran the stop sign. He switched which streets the two of them were coming from. Now imagine if she had called the cops, they wrote a report stating which roads the two of them approached from and wrote the other guy a ticket for running the stop sign.
Call the police unless the laws of your jurisdiction dictate otherwise.
That’s ridiculous. When I call the police, I expect them to use their brains and experience to decide whether they can spare the resources to send an officer. And if something occurs while the officer is responding, they can call him on the radio to redirect him.
Definitely call the police. It’s part of their job.
When I was much younger and more trusting, I was in a minor fender-bender that was absolutely not my fault. The other driver admitted that it was her fault and promised to make things right, so I didn’t call.
You guessed it – never saw a dime from her.
The OP was lucky that the company owner had the repairs done, subsequent misunderstanding with the insurance check notwithstanding. Without a police report you are much more likely to get screwed over than not.
How are you supposed to know if there’s a DUI?
You don’t call 911 except for emergencies, but it’s perfectly reasonable to call the police on their regular phone number if you have a legal question. They may have no answer for you regarding a civil matter, but there’s nothing wrong with asking.
[QUOTE=Really Not All That Bright]
Call the police unless the laws of your jurisdiction dictate otherwise.
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He went that-a-way <-------------->
If you are invovled in an accident, contact the police through the non-emergency police number. Every juridiction I have lived in has required this by law. If you are in one that doesn’t they will tell you. They may not send a car to the location, if both vehicles are driveable and there are no injuries. One accident I was in, in Florida, just had us drive over to the police station and they filled out the report there. When my wife hit a deer this last December, the Sheriff’s office sent a crusier over to the house a couple of hours later to fill out the report. Both state law in Iowa and our insurance required having the police report.